1 января 2015, 13:58 4 мин.

5 THINGS TO KNOW: SHARAPOVA & 2015

Автор

546

Why was 2014 so special for Maria Sharapova? What are her goals for 2015? Has another tennis player finally joined her with 15 million Facebook fans? Keep reading!

Published January 01, 2015 12:15

With the new season just days away, this week on wtatennis.com we're bringing you 5 Things To Know about the Top 5 players in the world and how they're looking for 2015. Today: Maria Sharapova.

1) She had the equal-best season of her career in 2014.

Sharapova finished the 2014 season at No.2 in the world, the third time in her career she's been the year-end No.2 - she also did it in 2006 and 2012. Her year was highlighted by another fantastic clay court season, winning three of the four tournaments she entered on the surface - Stuttgart, Madrid and the French Open. She captured her fourth WTA title of the year over in Beijing in October.

"There were a lot of question marks at the beginning of the season, and I'm happy to be sitting here and saying that I've added another Grand Slam title to my resume, that I've won great titles, I had a great clay court season, and a lot of good wins, a lot of tough matches that I pulled through that I could have easily lost. We all did it as a team and we're still working hard," Sharapova commented.

2) There was another reason why 2014 was special for her.

Sharapova went into 2014 having missed four and a half months at the end of 2013 - including the US Open and WTA Finals - due to a shoulder injury. For that, a sweet 2014 season was even sweeter.

"Going into this year I didn't really know what my personal expectations were," Sharapova said.

"I had one goal, and that was to try to remain as healthy as possible, to keep my shoulder strong. And I've done an incredible job of that. Actually I think this has been one of the few seasons where I haven't withdrawn from any tournaments or retired from any matches or anything like that."

3) She'll be gunning for No.1 in Melbourne.

Sharapova is currently 1435 points behind Serena Williams (8485 to 7050). Williams won't be defending her title in Brisbane - she's playing the Hopman Cup team exhibition event instead - so that gap will close, and Sharapova will likely be the leading challenger for No.1 in Melbourne.

But while No.1 is always a goal, the Russian pointed to something else as her focus for 2015.

"Adding more Grand Slams is the top priority," she said.

4) She's still the most followed tennis player, male or female, on Facebook.

In early November, Sharapova became the first tennis player, male or female, to cross 15 million followers on Facebook, just edging ATP World Tour legends Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal to the milestone. She's at 15,208,518 now - Federer and Nadal still haven't reached 15 million.

5) She'll get her matches in at Brisbane before the big one.

For just the third time in her long career, Sharapova will play a tournament in the Australian Open lead-up season - she played Auckland in 2011, Brisbane in 2014, and now Brisbane again in 2015.

"Brisbane is such a great tournament," Sharapova told the tournament's official website. "I tried to make it there so many years and I finally made it in 2014, and it was such a great experience.

"The fans were wonderful and the tournament organization was great."